Council making improvements to prevent data loss (York Liberal Democrats)

York Liberal Democrats <info@yorklibdems.org.uk>

Council making improvements to prevent data loss

October 29, 2008 12:00 AM

Cllr Nigel Ayre, Information Management and E-Government Champion, is welcoming the IT departments' work towards greater security of PCs and laptops, to avoid data and information going missing in the event of the machine being stolen. Changes are being made to how data is stored on the council's IT equipment.

The annual IT Development Plan includes specific proposals that would see all information transferred on to laptops being encrypted automatically, and the ITT department has now looked into what the market provides in terms of encryption solutions, and will present these findings to the Executive before the end of the year.

IT Champion Cllr Ayre said, "People are understandably concerned that public institutions which hold their financial and personal information will lose it, as the Government has been responsible for a series of data losses. It is very important that the Council honours its responsibility to taxpayers to ensure that their data is protected."

"Officers and councillors are already encouraged not to save data onto laptops or the hard-drive of PCs, but this encryption solution would mean that the information would remain secure even in the event of the machine being stolen, and I am therefore very pleased that the council is working to find a solution."

City of York Council's ITT department is also expanding the use of 'Thin Client' terminals within the council, with 450 thin client devices being installed during 08/09 and the roll out continuing during 09/10 and 10/11, once further funding has been secured. These 'Thin Client' terminals perform the function of PCs but do not have the facility to store information locally. The Council uses a central server which means computers can be used without the need for processing power or storage.

Cllr Ayre added, "If one of these 'Thin Client' devices was stolen, data would not be lost as there would be no information stored anywhere on the device itself, so increasing their number is an excellent security measure. It is also contributing to hitting the council's carbon reduction target of 25% by 2013, as these slimmed-down computers use just 5% of the energy a standard PC would use - 9 watts, rather than 180 watts an hour."